I think his point is that the thought now is that we couldn't compete against the better teams in the league because we were outclassed by GB & NE.
But we put the stank on Denver & Baltimore, two of the better teams in the league. We did the same to Chicago... they turned out to be an even bigger paper tiger than we were, but at the time, they looked like the class of the NFC.
& while Cincinnati isn't considered among the better teams in the league, they are a back to back play off team. Things could be better of course, but we could be Chicago... for a little while we were. We could be Cincinnati... we probably should have been the one & done Cincinnati Bengals.
Some people think we did no better than we did in 2011, exiting in the divisional round, & technically that's true. But I don't think it was the same. Had we played Baltimore, no doubt in my mind we'd have beat them.
Doesn't mean much but in my mind. New England
is on another level than Baltimore & Denver..... we could beat them (again in my mind) 2 out of 5 times, where I think it's more 50/50 with Baltimore & Denver.
I know it looks bad 41 to whatever... again if James Casey caught that ball I think New England would have had trouble keeping up with us.
Anyway, I think that was his point. I get your point as well. It's not that Kubiak was conservative, he was spineless. Put the ball in Schaub's hand on 3rd & 19, give us a shot to make it. If he throws it away, so be it.
Truthfully I haven't figured out if it's Kubiak that was spinelss, calling the draw; or if Schaub was the spineless one checking to the draw when he didn't see the ideal coverage.
But it was spineless just the same.